Last week, a new pair of jetblack pants came out of the washing machine in a depressing shade of grey.
I went back to the shop and they sent me home with a packet of Dylon fabric dye. The manual says: " Add salt, the dye, and wash pants in your washing machine as usual. When you’re done, wash it once more. "
Sounds easy, right?
Trouble is, I’m not sure I’m not heading for bigger disasters then just a pair of gray pants. A gray washing machine, for instance. Or grayish laundry all through 2006. Or pants that will just lose the dye again over the next three washings.
So, does anyone have experiences with this type of dye? Would you recommend it?
I have never used that brand of dye, but I’ve used lots of other fabric dyes. My experience has been the middle colors work fine, the darkest colors (dark green, navy blue, and black) have stained the plastic parts of my washing machine but did not bleed into the next few loads. I dyed a beige jacket black and it looked fine. The first cleaning after that, it looked more greenish-black, and progressively lighter with each cleaning. Wear points on the sleeves and collar quickly turned a sort of silver. (I prefer “silver” to “depressing gray” but I think a case could be made that gray was, in fact, the color.)
Also, I had to wash it separately, forever after, or I did get a gray wash. (Well, not separately, but with a pair of black pants I had also dyed.)
I should have added that, according to the directions on this particular dye, the item was supposed to be washed in the machine at the hottest water temp. But the jacket itself, being linen, was supposed to be washed cold or dry cleaned. So right off there was a problem.
Probably starting with pants that were originally black you will get better results.
In the worst case you can run your machine through a cycle with just water and bleach–that should ease your fears of gray laundry through 2006.
I’ve never been a fan of machine-dying as the machine cycle is far too short to be useful. The recommended soak time for black Dylon is three hours. If you’ve got a front-load machine, the effective soak is going to be closer to three minutes, and it’s impossible to pour in the dye mid-cycle. (At least mine does a bunch of short fill-and-slosh cycles, rather than one long slosh)
this site lays it all out - do note that you need to match the type of fabric with the type of dye and water temperature. At the very bottom of that page, there’s a link to further info, including tips on making the dye colorfast with their Dye Fix so it won’t disappear in two washings.
You must use the colorfast version if you want it not to bleed. However, it cannot be used for all fabrics and it is not recommended for washers(you gotta hand dye).
Well, the packet (powder, not liquid) is similar to " DYLON Colourfast Dye" on the site supplied by gottpasswords, but the packet says it is fit for machinedying. Weird, must be a translation or marketingdifference.
Anyway, after reading Hilarity’s post I’m certainly not going to use the washing machine! But I might go for the bucket method, or even the bathtub method. I hope my bathtub is, at least, colorresistant.
Indeed, the dye says to use water of at least 60 degrees celcius, and the pants say they can’t stand water over 30 degrees. shrug… they’re spoiled anyway.
I did write a complaint to the manufacturer of the pants. More out of curiosity then anything else; it was a fancy brand and I wonder how they’re gonna respond to my e-mail.